ABSTRACT
The Last Judgment Portal at Reims (Plate 2) has a storied place in the history of gothic sculpture and architecture, mostly for the role it has played in theories about the chronology of Reims Cathedral. Some scholars have viewed the portal as a complete retrofit of sculptures originally made for the west façade but later installed in the easternmost portal of the north transept (Plate 1, Figure I.2) when the plan for the gothic cathedral’s west front was changed. This idea, first proposed by Hans Kunze in 1912, dominated the literature for the greater part of the twentieth century and inspired a variety of theories, most notably those of Robert Branner, about an “original” plan for the sculptures of the Last Judgment Portal. 2 Others, beginning with William Hinkle in 1975, have argued that all of the portal’s sculptures were designed for their present location. 3 For Hinkle, the conformity of its archivolts to the ninety-degree angle of the barrel vault provided sufficient evidence. 4 However, his assessment has recently been called into question by Alain Villes, who has revived the theory of the Last Judgment Portal as part of an original plan for the west façade. 5 Villes argues that the entirety of the Last Judgment Portal’s sculpture was part of a thirteenth-century project for the twelfth-century west front of Archbishop Samson’s cathedral, which was maintained during the early construction of the gothic building. The present essay will suggest that neither interpretation adequately accounts for the portal’s complexity. As the study in this volume by Iliana Kasarska details, there were numerous stages to the construction of the Last Judgment Portal, whose sculptures vary in style and are datable from the 1220s to the 1240s. 6 While Kasarska demonstrates that most of the sculptures were made for the eastern portal of the north transept, she also makes a compelling argument that some of its earliest sculptures, specifically the statue-columns and upper portions of the tympanum, which show signs of adaptation, were likely originally planned for some other location. 7 A study of the Last Judgment Portal’s iconography can also contribute to our understanding of the portal’s complex design and sequence of construction.
